Episode 354 - EATAQ36 - The "Monstrous Absurdity" of Academic Skepticism - Not Yet Recorded

Welcome to Episode 354 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective, which gives us an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and helps us understand Epicurus' position on the same issues. This week will continue in Section 18 of Book 2.

Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackham translation here: Cicero On Nature Of Gods Academica Loeb Rackham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

As we proceed through the end of Academic Questions, these are the topics we expect to cover:

24. Lucullus's Extended Rebuttal of the Academic Doctrine, and His Concluding Appeal to Cicero (2:XIII)
25. Cicero Begins His Reply (2:XX)
26. Cicero Lays Out the Syllogism About Assent and Opinion (2:XXI)
27. Cicero Turns to Antiochus's Own Inconsistency (2:XXII)
28. Cicero Defends His Citation of the Ancient Philosophers (2:XXIII)
29. Cicero Adds Chrysippus and the Cyrenaics, Then Returns to Arcesilas and Zeno (2:XXIV)
30. Cicero Returns to Attacking the Senses (2:XXV)
31. Cicero Presses the Sun's Size and the Limits of Trained Perception (2:XXVI)
32. Cicero Turns the "Art" Argument Back on Lucullus (2:XXVII)
33. Cicero Multiplies Examples From Madness (2:XXVIII)
34. Cicero Attacks Reason and Dialectics: The Sorites Paradox (2:XXIX)
35. Cicero Presses the Liar Paradox (2:XXX)
36. Cicero Presents Carneades's Own Positive Doctrine of Probability (2:XXXI)
37. Cicero Distinguishes the Academic Position From Epicurus's (2:XXXII)
38. Cicero Defends Probability Against the Charge That It Cannot Support Memory or Action (2:XXXIII)
39. Cicero Answers the "Self-Refuting" and "Two Incompatible Propositions" Objections (2:XXXIV)
40. Cicero Broadens the Argument Beyond the Stoics (2:XXXV)
41. Cicero Reflects on His Own Position Among the Competing Schools (2:XXXVI)
42. Cicero's Survey of Disagreement Among the Natural Philosophers (2:XXXVII)
43. Cicero Presses the Problem of Providence and the Limits of Physics (2:XXXVIII)
44. Cicero's Survey Continues: The Soul, the Antipodes, and the Motion of the Earth (2:XXXIX)
45. Cicero Asks Which Natural Philosopher He Would Even Choose to Follow (2:XL)
46. Cicero Turns to Ethics: Even the Gods Are Disputed (2:XLI)
47. Cicero's Roll Call of Rival Schools on the Chief Good, Part One (2:XLII)
48. Cicero's Roll Call of Rival Schools on the Chief Good, Part Two (2:XLIII)
49. Cicero Weighs Zeno Against Antiochus on Virtue and the Happy Life (2:XLIV)
50. Cicero Catalogs the Stoic Paradoxes About the Wise Man (2:XLV)
51. Cicero's Climactic Debate Between Pleasure and Honor (2:XLVI)
52. Cicero Turns to the Canon of Truth, and Zeno's Hand (2:XLVII)
53. The Dialogue's Close (2:XLVIII)

As we brought up in last week's episode, Lucullus (speaking for the Stoics) says that the skeptics like to cite Democritus (not Epicurus) for the position that nothing can be known.

This week the first statement in section 18 returns to that point, again without mentioning Epicurus. In doing so Lucullus distinguishes Democritus from "the more refined natural philosophers" who say that "everything has its own separate property."

We'll want to discuss whether this statement is referring to Epicurus. Also we'll want to discuss whether Epicurus would agree that "everything has its own separate property."

I suspect on first thought that the answers are "yes" and "yes -after we clarify what 'property' means," but we welcome all comments or opinions on those before we record.

This is the Yonge version so it will be interesting to check if Rackham or others have commented on this reference.

Quote

First of all I reply, that you are bringing me to the arguments of Democritus, with whom I do not agree. And I will the more readily refute them, on account of that doctrine which is laid down very clearly by the more refined natural philosophers, that everything has its own separate property.

I see from inital searching that there is an academic consensus that this is Lucullus talking about the Stoics themselves, and that Cicero himself seems to corroborate this later in Cicero's own part of the argument. So likely there are similiarities but also differences in the Epicurean view of this.

Additional notes - this from Claude:

That cross-reference carries the argument, because in §85 Cicero, replying to Lucullus, names the doctrine's owners himself. He says the claim that everything is in a class of its own and that nothing is the same as anything else is a Stoic argument, and not a very convincing one: that no hair or grain of sand is in every respect the same as another. So the identification comes from the text itself, not only from editorial guesswork. The doctrine is the Stoic principle of the idiōs poion, the "peculiarly qualified individual": no two individuals can be indiscernible. The principle is attested elsewhere too, for example in Plutarch's On Common Conceptions and Seneca's Letter 113. attalusThat cross-reference carries the argument, because in §85 Cicero, replying to Lucullus, names the doctrine's owners himself. He says the claim that everything is in a class of its own and that nothing is the same as anything else is a Stoic argument, and not a very convincing one: that no hair or grain of sand is in every respect the same as another. So the identification comes from the text itself, not only from editorial guesswork. The doctrine is the Stoic principle of the idiōs poion, the "peculiarly qualified individual": no two individuals can be indiscernible. The principle is attested elsewhere too, for example in Plutarch's On Common Conceptions and Seneca's Letter 113. attalus

We are referring today (in part) to Seneca's letter 113:

Moral letters to Lucilius/Letter 113 - Wikisource, the free online library